Portugal · airport pick-up
Airport car rental in Sintra
Pick up a rental car at Sintra's airport terminals. Expedia Cars covers every major counter on arrivals — collect your key minutes after baggage claim, drop off at the same gate, no shuttle hassle.
- ✓On-airport counters at every Sintra terminal
- ✓No off-site shuttles for the major brands
- ✓Flexible fare options shown per flight
- ✓One-way drop-off available · Powered by Expedia Cars
What first-timers get wrong in Sintra
Pena sells timed half-hour entry slots that vanish days ahead in season, and arriving without one in August means the park ticket or nothing at all. Bus 434 runs a one-way loop, so you cannot ride it back the way you came. Trains from Rossio need a rechargeable Viva Viagem card, fifty cents bought once, because paper tickets are no longer issued. The Cabo da Roca bus is now numbered 1253 and takes cash.
What things cost in Sintra
Pena costs twenty euro for park and palace together, or twelve for the park alone. Quinta da Regaleira is around fifteen. The train from Rossio is a couple of euro each way plus the fifty-cent card. A travesseiro at Piriquita runs a little over a euro, and a pastel de nata less. Sintra charges a nightly municipal tourist tax of two euro per person, capped after three consecutive nights.
Sintra with kids, realistically
These hills are cobbled and close to vertical, which makes a pushchair a mistake; take bus 434 up to the Moorish Castle and Pena, then walk down. Regaleira's tunnels, grottoes and wells amount to the nearest thing to an adventure playground and land well from about seven upward. The old electric tram down to Praia das Macas runs on selected days and takes roughly forty-five minutes to reach the sea.
What to eat in Sintra
Travesseiros, long puff-pastry pillows filled with egg-and-almond cream, come from Casa Piriquita on Rua das Padarias, trading since 1862, with a second branch fifty metres uphill for when the first has a queue into the street. Queijadas, small cheese-and-cinnamon tarts, predate them by centuries. The serious drink is Colares wine, grown in coastal sand on ungrafted vines phylloxera never reached, and Adega Viuva Gomes still bottles it.
Sintra after dark
Sintra empties at dusk. Palaces close by six or seven, the coach parties drain away, and by nine the historic centre is down to a handful of restaurants. What life remains gathers around Estefania near the station rather than in the postcard streets uphill. Anyone wanting an evening takes the forty-minute train back to Rossio. The exception is the Festival de Sintra, a classical season staged inside the palaces themselves.
When to go to Sintra
| Best months for airport-cars | Avg daily high | Rain days |
|---|---|---|
| July | 25°C / 77°F | 1 days |
| August | 25°C / 77°F | 1 days |
| May | 21°C / 70°F | 8 days |
The month to avoid is December — around 15°C (59°F) with roughly 13 rain days. Prices and crowds track the weather here: July is the sweet spot, December the month most people skip.
Pack for peak season: Summer clothes, plus one light layer for air-con and evenings, Comfortable walking shoes — every guide on this site assumes you'll use them.
Where to base yourself in Sintra
- Sintra Vila — Historic centre — the National Palace, restaurants, the train station.
- Pena Park — Forested hillside — Pena Palace, the Moorish Castle, the Convent of the Capuchos.
- Colares — Coastal village — sand-grown vineyards, Atlantic beaches, fewer tourists.